Talk:Watch Out Now/@comment-3575890-20150526185921
Lexa is a terrible influence on Clarke, but she is not an irredeemable person. Internalized as they are, she has feelings and with that, the capacity to sympathize with, emotionally connect with, and deeply care for someone. In fact, the reason why she’s closed her heart off in the first place is because she’s still scarred from the loss of her one true love. Lexa has made some very questionable choices that seem very heartless, but they are always what she personally believes to be for the betterment of her people. I actually can’t wrap my head around how disliked she is by a lot of people right now because honestly, she’s literally the female embodiment of everyone’s fan favorite - Bellamy - just in a different life and thus significantly more jaded and hardened. It is true that Bellamy isn’t nearly as militaristic and apathetic even at his worst, BUT in alternative circumstances, he COULD have been. There’s no denying that they are similar at their cores. They both aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, to make morally questionable choices in the name of the greater good, they are natural born leaders with moxie, influence, and power, they are reactionary, inflammatory, and militaristic, but also strategic and calculating, and they share the same weakness in the form of a certain blonde, but that’s for another post, lol. What I love about Lexa is that she’s a clear-cut example of what Bellamy could have become - was honestly in danger of becoming - if he did not have people he cared for and that cared for him. Bellamy turned out the way he did because he had the love and support of his friends, not to mention the gentle hand of Clarke to guide him down the right path when he’d descended into a downward spiral. And then of course, he also had Octavia - his humanity and initially, sole reason he had the will to live. But WHO does Lexa have? Somebody please answer me that. Exactly. Lexa was shaped into the ruthless ruler she is by life’s many hardships and plights. She’s a victim of circumstance and though that does not give her a get out of free jail card, it DOES put her behavior into such a perspective that merits some sympathy and understanding. She is a very ambiguously written character, just like Bellamy was in the beginning of the series. She’s calculating, ruthless, cold, and unrelentingly merciless, BUT she’s this way partly because she loved TOO much. So much that she had to close her heart off to the rest of the world to prevent from having to endure that unfathomable pain again. She tried to let down her walls again because deep down she WANTS to love and be loved like everybody else. She’s just afraid. I’ve already said that I don’t ship Clexa and I have my reasons for that that I hope people can understand without me having to reiterate them, but I love Lexa so fucking much. She’s a very tragic character forged from the string of losses she’s incurred in her short time on earth. She is so heartbreakingly young and she has lost so much. Her youth, her innocence, her humanity (to a degree), but most of all, her fundamental right to show weakness. Lexa has never had anybody to teach her that it’s okay to be afraid, to cry, to FEEL. She has never been granted the freedom to express herself beyond a stony, repressed persona she was forced to adapt. She was indoctrinated into a self-indulging culture that prioritizes brute strength and preservation over scruples, dismisses any expression of emotion as soft-hearted weakness thus encourages its people to compartmentalize their emotions, and defines human worth based on all around indestructibility. Of course Lexa is cold and ruthless. She was never given the chance to develop into anything else. But underneath that veneer of cold indifference and cutthroat malevolence, she isn’t just that either.